Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
Funds — most tracking an index — whose shares trade on exchanges all day at market prices; an in-kind creation/redemption mechanism keeps prices near NAV and adds tax efficiency.
The exam’s favorite ETF item is a three-way structure sort: it hands you a feature and makes you name the wrapper. A market price that stays close to NAV is the ETF tell — the arbitrage from authorized participants’ creation/redemption keeps the spread tight, which is exactly why an ETF is not a closed-end fund. Closed-end shares also trade all day, but their price floats to a premium or discount set by supply and demand because there is no continuous redemption to close the gap. The classic trap: if a question prices exchange-traded-fund shares meaningfully away from NAV, the answer is closed-end, not ETF (an ETF can still show a small premium or discount).
Don’t confuse the ETF with the index it tracks — the index is the measurement (you can’t buy it directly), the ETF is the tradeable product. Versus open-end mutual funds, the dividing line is once-daily forward pricing, no shorting or margin against intraday, marginable, shortable. Memory hook: an ETF trades like a sTock, a mutual fund settles like a fund.
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